Monday, March 03, 2014

The new nurse in town

Our co-workers left this morning for a month long break. Before she left, Shannon brought me two boxes this morning: one containing various boxes of painkillers like ibuprofen, paracetamol and the like. The other box contains bandages and wound care items.

I shuddered as I took them; I am no nurse.

She also let me watch her clean up a machete foot wound. I nobly suppressed the gag reflex and promised to keep my eye on it for a week or so.

Like I said, I don't even pretend to be a nurse. I can barely keep it together when my child has a wound.

We didn't tell anyone in the village that I even had the boxes of medicine, but she gave them to me "just in case". I also tried to spread the word this morning that accidental injuries are strictly forbidden for the next month.

Our co-workers had not been gone for five minutes when my first little patient arrived. Throwing up and diarrhea in an 18 month old toddler, without a fever. Using my very poor Tagalog, I suggested that the mother increase the times she nurses the baby and wait to see if it passes.

A few hours later I was scrambling some eggs for supper when I saw a group of women that I didn't recognize coming down the path. I thought to myself, "I bet they are coming here..." Sure enough, there was a knock on my door. One of the ladies was suffering from a headache and had walked, along with her five friends, from the village 30 minutes away for a check-up. WHAT? I asked the lady about her other symptoms and when I was satisfied it was only a headache I sold the lady some ibuprofen.

A guy with them asked if we could give him anything for an allergic reaction he was having on his arm. We said no to that one, not wanting to dive into diagnosis and prescribing on our first day on the job. Hopefully he's ok.

After selling a few vitamins and a package of paracetamol to another neighbor, I guess the word is out that the new nurse is in.